My name is Mark Sumimoto; I am Sumocat. I dabble in all areas of mobile computing, but my focus is Windows-based Tablet PCs and pen input. They’ve been part of my arsenal since 2004, and I’m proud to have pioneered the field of ink blogging, earning a spot as a Microsoft MVP for Touch and Tablets in the process. My current tools include a Fujitsu Lifebook T900, TEGA v2, and iPhone 4. Email me: sumocat [at] notebooks.com
Any hopes that the HP Slate 500 might swing back to being a consumer gadget after being rebranded as an enterprise device got a little slimmer this week as HP announced a couple of health care applications for the tablet, taking it back to a key vertical market of the Tablet PC.
Word out of IDG News is that Fujitsu will launch their new Stylistic Q550 at Germany’s CeBIT show this year, running the first week of March. This should be a welcomed return for many long-time Tablet PC fans who lamented the gradual decline of this line of slates. And for those who don’t know their [...]
Bits and pieces of rumors are coming together to form a picture that Intel’s new multi-Gb/s, multi-protocol wired interface called Light Peak will be featured in the new Macbook Pro as Apple’s Thunderbolt. Sounds cool, but what does that mean for us?
In an email leaked to Slashgear, Nokia has announced that members of their Launchpad application development program will get an E7 smartphone. That’s right, you get an E7, you get an E7, everyone gets an E7! (And by “everyone” I mean, everyone who is a Launchpad member.) But wait, there’s more!
According to Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt, when it comes to tablets, Microsoft could be “closer to competitive than some realize”. Unfortunately, that’s not saying a lot. In fact, it’s actually a little depressing.
As if hackles weren’t already raised on this issue, The Business Insider is reporting that Netflix is getting a pass, allowing them to continue without including in-app subscription purchases in their iOS app. Special treatment or part of an existing deal?
A smarter way to marry paper notes and the digital world was introduced in Japan. A stationery company called King Jim is producing pads of paper designed to be photographed by iPhones with a system to crop and order the images as notes.
As the Microsoft-Nokia partnership takes shape, their merged phone strategy means big changes. One announcement is lower priced smartphones. One possibly related rumor is that the Zune brand may be phased out and/or consolidated with another.
So apparently HP tried to use the Grammy awards as the launch point for their new “Everybody On” campaign. It included a commercial that is being widely reviled and the HP TouchPad shown in use before commercial breaks. Effective? Survey says “no”.
As previously hinted, Apple is rolling out a new in-app subscription system and enforcing a new requirement that the option to purchase a subscription in-app be included. While it does not negate the option to purchase a subscription outside the app, the policy does prohibit links within the app to do so. Pretty strict, but [...]
Clarification of a months-old report that Netflix would be limited to certain Android devices came today from Qualcomm as they announced that their Snapdragon platform will enable Netflix instant streaming. The implication is, if you don’t have Qualcomm, you can’t get Netflix.
Undeterred by a week of bad news, Intel is demonstrating the tablet user experience for MeeGo at Mobile World Congress. Our friends at Netbook News have an excellent video of a demo unit in which they ask some very important questions.
In a line that sounds strikingly familiar, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that they would “give people the full Web on their phone” by bringing Internet Explorer 9 to Windows Phone 7, complete with hardware acceleration for better animation. So that means Adobe Flash, right? Uh, no.
Over the weekend at 2011 Mobile World Congress, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was asked straight out if he was a “Trojan Horse”, i.e., if he joined Nokia with the intent of subverting it with the partnership to his old company, Microsoft. “The obvious answer,” he said, “is no.” But that’s not the whole answer.
The ever moving target that is the price and release date of the Motorola Xoom tablet running Android 3.0 is on the move again. Is it $799 or $899? Is it the 17th or 24th? Or is it, as claimed on the Best Buy website, available for pre-order on the 17th for… $1199.99?!?
Look up the word “loser” on the Internet this week and you might hear the Intel chime in the background. Or at least that’s the impression I got after reading reaction to this week’s big tech announcements.
While we in the States were (and still are) sleeping, Finnish phone giant Nokia and software behemoth Microsoft announced a strategic partnership that would put Microsoft software, specifically Windows Phone, on Nokia smartphones and merge overlapping services together. This is possibly the biggest shift in the smartphone industry since a certain touchscreen phone was introduced.
GigaOM has an excellent write-up about a start-up company called Pelican Imaging that is taking a novel approach to smartphone cameras that should lead to better photos without requiring giant lenses or larger sensors.
As if we needed more reasons for people to talk on their mobile phones all the time, AT&T is pushing out unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling regardless of network. So talking to your friends who use Verizon Wireless won’t use up your minutes. Best part is folks who already have unlimited calls have an opportunity to save [...]
For those lamenting the lack of a physical button to snap photos from your iPhone or iPod touch, Camera Mic might be the next best thing. It doesn’t add a button, but rather uses sound as a trigger to snap a photo. Anything from a tap on the microphone to the click from your mouth [...]
If you asked me last week which tablet user experience was the best, I wouldn’t have had a solid answer for you. They all have good points and bad. Whether one is “best” depends greatly on the user. Well, I’m chucking some of that out the window because I have seen the light and it [...]
Ahead of today’s big HP Palm event, PreCentral.net scooped everyone by learning the name of the star product, the HP Palm TouchPad, a slate running WebOS, at the event rehearsal. They also learned it will be 1.5 pounds and 13mm thick. However, contrary to some reports, that’s all they learned.
Last week’s dueling tablet news brought to mind an old Tablet PC argument. On one side, there’s The Daily, the digital newspaper designed for the iPad which retains the vertical orientation of print. On the other was Android 3.0 Honeycomb which demonstrated a distinct horizontal orientation. Makes me wonder how the old “portrait or landscape” [...]
Been trying to decide if a note-taking slate device called the (wait for it) NoteSlate is cool or not. On one hand, it’s a slate with an active digitizer that looks pretty slick. On the other hand, its only use is to write or draw notes on the screen. Even at $99, it strikes me [...]
Momentum for the phone + tablet combo keeps building, and this time it’s not just matter of mixing and matching your own pair of devices. Rather, tablet maker ARCHOS is partnering with phone maker ALCATEL ONE TOUCH to offer bundles of their respective wares.
CNN reports that Verizon is readying to transmit voice calls, text messages, and video calls over IP on their 4G LTE system, a move that should greatly improve call clarity. The system, dubbed VoLTE for “Voice over LTE” is set to debut next week in Barcelona, Spain at the Mobile World Congress. The test phone [...]
According to Pocket-Lint, Viewsonic is pushing out their ViewPad 4 smartphone with Android 2.4. The claimed reason they’re skipping ahead of the latest release, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, is to “ensure compatibility with dual-core apps”. Furthermore, they claim this version will retain the “Gingerbread” name, as dual-core compatibility will be the only change.
When it comes to touchscreen all-in-ones, one thing all of us seem to agree on is that they need to be tilt-adjustable. Upright is great for watching video and standard desktop operation, but for extensive touchscreen operation, most people prefer a leaned-back screen. Well, HP’s got that well-covered with their new TouchSmart610 and TouchSmart 9300 [...]
Are tablets ready for some football? According to CNET, NFL teams are asking that question and looking at the iPad and other tablets to replace paper playbooks.
Patently Apple has dug up a new Apple patent (*shocker*) for a capacitive stylus that uses a ball and disc system to establish a contact point with adequate surface area for a capacitive touchscreen to detect that will remain flush with the screen when used at an angle. Smart design, but still just another capacitive [...]
In a Facebook posting that has since been pulled, the Grand Rapids South Best Buy announced four products to be released in February, among them the Motorola Xoom tablet on the 24th.
Despite being more than half a year old, the iPhone 4 has brought Verizon Wireless what they claim is their “most successful first day sales in the history of the company”. And that was in only two hours of pre-orders! What the what?
Great news for 95% of folks signing up for Verizon’s returning unlimited wireless data plan is you can download all the data you want… until you reach the top 5% of data usage at which point your usage is deemed “excessive” and your throughput may be throttled. Hooray for unlimited (within certain limits) data!
WSJ has updated an earlier report that Apple was forcing publishers to switch to their in-app payment system. Despite dire warnings, this is not a switch but an addition. Publishers that already conduct sales outside the app can continue to do so, but must also offer the option to make the purchase in-app, a policy [...]
The folks making the Kno, the giant pen + touch tablet for education, are serious about pen input. So serious, they test it with toys. Robots made of Lego to be exact. Sounds like fun and games, but it’s all for science and product testing. Now, let’s see those Lego robots in action.
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Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE Review: A Worthy Successor to the Original (Video)
When Sprint had debuted the original WiMax-capable HTC EVO 4G nearly two years ago, it was an instant hit on the Now network. Not only was the HTC EVO 4G the first 4G smartphone in the world taking advantage of Sprint’s then speedy WiMax network, but it brought some new features and pizzazz to the [...]
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Google Search App iPhone and iPad Update Looks Beautiful (Video)
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